AS Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) reveals why it has been rated among the top three universities in Sub-Sahara Africa, the institute brags of producing the first-ever batch of cardiothoracic surgery graduates in the present academic year.
Cardiothoracic surgery, also known as thoracic surgery, is a field of surgery pertaining to organs in the thorax (chest), including the heart and lungs.
At the end of June this year, Times Higher Education (THE) World University rankings placed MUHAS third among 121 institutions after two South African Universities of Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, which ranked first and second, respectively.
MUHAS Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics), Prof Emmanuel Balandya disclosed this in Dar es Salaam, yesterday, expressing the government's commitment to ensure the country has super-specialised services-a move aimed at reducing the number of patients travelling abroad to seek related medical services.
In support of the endeavour, he noted that 20 super-specialised programmes have been introduced at MUHAS including, cardiothoracic surgeon.
Equally, they were aimed to ensure access to specialised services in the country include paediatric, plastic and reconstructive surgery and urology.
The rest are cardiothoracic anaesthesia, critical care medicine, clinical neonatology, paediatric haematology and oncology, and many other.
On his part, the Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Appolinary Kamuhabwa unveiled the secret behind the success attained as including effective implementation of academic programmes (which was one of the THE's criteria) initiated by the institute.
"MUHAS was able to attain the achievement through effective implementation of activities set in the institutional strategic plan. Currently, MUHAS has 103 academic programmes and most of these, 84 are postgraduate programmes" Prof Kamuhabwa revealed.
Adding: "Among the 84 postgraduate programs at MUHAS, 20 are super-specialised offering master of medicine training in rare fields such as cardiology, nephrology, respiratory medicine, interventional radiology, neuroradiology and so on".
He said the programmes issued by the institute has attracted medical trainees not only from Tanzania, but also outsiders adding that currently, 10 per cent of MUHAS postgraduate students are from foreign countries.
According to him, the ranking covers elements of teaching, impact and research through exploring five key areas which were resources and finances, access and fairness, teaching skills, student engagement and Africa impact.
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Prof Kamuhabwa exposed another strategy that has boosted the performance of MUHAS is through mobilisation of the university staff and students to publish their research works in quality peer-reviewed journals that are indexed in respectable medical research databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science.
"These have made publications by MUHAS staff and students accessible globally. This increases citation index of MUHAS scholars, visibility of their scholarly work, and ultimately institutional visibility and relevance. As a result, the University may be scored highly in the area of research", he added
He also said the volume of MUHAS research output has seen a steady increase over the period of five years owing to a number of strategies and investments.
"To date, MUHAS has over 135 ongoing sponsored research projects and programmes, working with more than 100 international and local collaborating institutions and producing between 450 and 500 scientific publications in reputable peer-reviewed local and international journals annually", he said.
